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Wyoming Moves Closer to Wolf Management

About a week from now, or perhaps a little bit longer, a wolf spotted on a mountainside south of Teton Pass will go from being a fully protected animal to one that’s treated as vermin. The switch will occur overnight.

Following years of legal quarreling and wolves’ on-again, off-again listing under the Endangered Species Act, the canines are again about to become a species Wyoming is allowed to manage.

The state’s “dual-classification” system — a mix of a free-fire “predator zone” and managed “trophy game” area — is positioned to be the law of the land because of a recent U.S. Court of Appeals’ opinion that affirmed the legality of Wyoming’s management plan.

This means that in the majority of the state, wolves will be treated like vermin, legally trapped any day of the year, and shot on sight. Non-lethal control is rarely addressed. Wyoming just can’t seem to budge on its archaic predator management policies.